Poetry is what gets lost in translation-Robert Frost

January 26, 2018

The Year Of Living Dangerously (Novel)

While getting myself in the mood for another visit to Indonesia, this time Lombok and Jakarta I re-watched Peter Weir's excellent adaptation of Christopher J. Koch's original novel, The Year Of Living Dangerously (1978). I guess it would be cliche to say that the novel was better than the film, but it something of a different animal-both are worthwhile-the film has a standout performance by Linda Hunt as the Aussie-Chinese half dwarf cameraman as well as early performances from breakout stars Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. One feature from the novel that was taken out was the fact that it was narrated from the first person point of view from Cook, an Australian reporter in his late thirties who was sympathetic to all the main parties involved. I appreciated the authenticity of locations, historical events, local color, and more nuanced characterizations of the people involved in the story. It was better than I expected it to be and had lots of local color-too bad it arrived after I returned from my trip I should have liked to have read it in a seedy cafe in Jakarta.